After The "Thick Translation"

In this thesis,the author rethinks the most typical example of thick translation in Chinese translation history—Yan Fu's translation of Thomas H.Huxley's Evolution & Ethics and Other Essays(Tianyan Lun)from the perspective of thick translation.It is called rethinking,because the author performs her studies on the basis of the predecessors' achievements,and the analysis of reasons of thick translation has close relationship with such cultural factors as ideology,poetics,patronage and readership. What's different is that the analysis is carried out from a new angle and the author makes a thorough study on the translation characteristic—"thick translation" in it.The author adopts the methodology of descriptive translation studies and classifies the phenomenon of thick translation in Tianyan Lun,in aspects of content and form respectively.As far as the respective of content or function is concerned, thick translation can help the translator highlight the quintessence of each passage, and serve as explanation of technical terms or conceptions,further elucidation of the author's viewpoints,introduction to western scholars and academic thoughts and comments on viewpoints.As for the respective of form,thick translation can be rearrangement of chapters and addition of titles,explanation in the form of subscripts, phrases and sentences added in texts,and annotations and commentaries.Then,the author makes an analysis of the reasons of the appearance of such a phenomenon and explores the influence imposed on the translator by ideology,poetics,patronage and readership,considering that the birth of Tianyan Lun as a thick translation has close tie with the contemporary social cultural background.It can be concluded that it is the ideology of the society,the ideology of the translator,the status quo of culture,the translator's preference of Tongcheng School style,the readers the translator bore in mind and his teacher Wu Rulun,who played a role of patron that directly or indirectly give birth to such a thick translation—Tianyan Lun,which is by no means a coincidence. It is undeniable that Yan Fu's Tianyan Lun has exerted great influence in the society.Not only did Yan perform the work of a translator,but also he sounded the alarm clock to the Chinese people in crisis and aroused his countrymen to stand up and save their own nation,making it become a monument in the history of Chinese thoughts.The author just seizes the characteristic—thick translation.On the one hand, she proves the reasonable existence and historical importance of Tianyan Lun through studies from the new angle;and on the other,the author also makes some theoretical explorations on thick translation through studies on Yan Fu's Tianyan Lun and further defines the function and the form of thick translation,with the expectation of providing a new explanation to translation studies.